Belong to Something
University of South Wales.
TV Commercial
The brief for the 2023 University of South Wales TV commercial centred around a handful of alumni sharing advice and stories from their time at university. The target audience, primarily Gen-Z, were identified as being more switched-on and savvy than ever, so the idea for this commercial was to convey a sense of honesty and authenticity.
We wouldn’t be where we are if we hadn’t been to University and as our video production company is made up of a majority of USW alumni, we could relate to what USW wanted to achieve and could see what positive impacts this campaign could have for the University, Cardiff and South Wales.
“On Par delivered an outstanding TV ad, it has had an overwhelmingly positive response.”
University of South Wales
We wanted to make it clear that USW gives students the tools they need to break into their chosen industry, while at the same time not laying the sales pitch thick. We had to tread carefully to ensure we struck the right balance.
Building on the open and honest ideals of the brief, our proposal was to shoot the interviews from an almost behind-the-scenes perspective where microphones, lights and the edges of backdrops would all be in frame and the “inner workings” of the commercial itself would be on show, to add to the authenticity. For this to feel real while still functioning as a TV commercial, we worked with the contributors to create a script of boiled down answers, rather than feeding them lines.
All of this combined enabled us to create a TV Commercial that answered the client’s brief and more. In addition to the 30 and 60 second commercials, we produced a number of longer web and social media films focused on each of the featured alumni. A series of photographs were also taken which, combined with quotes from the interviews, have been used in an Out Of Home bilingual campaign.
“Their communication, attention to detail and management of the project meant the ad was delivered well within deadline, and to budget.”
University of South Wales
With On Par leading on all creative, production and delivery elements, this campaign became a great opportunity for us to run our first Carbon Neutral production, calculated through and certified by AdGreen – something we will be doing for all commercials moving forward.
We also felt strongly about involving current USW students in the commercial’s production, creating eleven trainee positions for students to shadow the crew members. Check out this BTS film, shot by the students, to see how they got on.
